Final Chapter - Part III 
Keys To A Successful Campaign
1. QUANTITY. Because you will be hitting a lot of different people, it comes down to a numbers game. How many people will you hit that are interested in your offer at the time your ad “pops” under or redirects from the site they are browsing? If they are interested at a later date and your campaign is no longer running, then you will have in a sense helped your competition who is there later, at the right moment. So if you are buying guaranteed traffic, be sure to buy as many as you can afford to.
2. LANDING PAGE. The landing page is whatever web page that people see in the actual pop-under. This can be any page, whether it’s the home page or a custom sales page. Most often advertisers use their home page as their landing page. BIG MISTAKE!
I recommend that you have a page created just for your offer. Make sure you have a great headline that stands out and can be read and understood in about 2 seconds. It amazes me how many people use their homepage as their URL. When my company offers to create a landing page for our customers, they are always pleased with both the ad and the results. Some seeing increases up to a 67.5% response over previously run campaigns.
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[Think about it] How come Amazon.com and Orbitz don’t just show their home page in a pop under ad? Because it wouldn’t work! What if a department store showed all the products inside of their store, or worse, the entire strip of stores in the mall they were located at, and put it all on a billboard? Would the average driver focused on their destination have time to understand the message the advertiser is trying to convey? Not many of them at all. What kind of results do you think that billboard campaign would achieve? ================================================== ============
Remember, your home page is used to navigate people to all the many different parts of your site. There is not usually any one specific theme or offer but, rather multiple offers, animations, buttons, and a lot of different paths to take. This is way too much for a person to comprehend in just 2 seconds.
So since most people didn’t ask to see your ad in the first place, the subconscious response is: “Since I didn’t ask to see this site and there is no distinct offer, there might as well be no offer at all.” Click close [x].
[==SUCCESS TIP==] Make a great landing page that directs people where you want them to go. I assure you it will increase your response.
K.I.S.S. - Keep it short and sweet. Don’t try to close the sale, get the sign-up, etc in the first 2 seconds. Be compelling, get the viewers attention, and draw them into your offer. Take them through a sales “process”, not a sales “slam” - you will have much better results.
3. APPLES-TO-APPLES. One frustration common among advertisers is the difference between the response to a pop campaign and a pay per click campaign. There are many, many reasons for this difference, but a main reason is they are not the same type of advertising. One is active, the other is passive. Remember we talked about that earlier in this article? In general pay-per-click (Overture Precision Match
www.overture.com, GOOGLE ADWORDS
www.Google.com, Find What
www.Findwhat.com, etc) will always yield a higher conversion rate than a pop campaign. It is also much more expensive and difficult to track to use this form of advertising.
One key reason there is better response rate in PPC (a passive form of advertising) is these are people who took the time to type in a phrase into a search engine and click a link. They are actively looking for your service. Pop type ads are active forms of advertising and show up on a related site, but the viewer, who is passive about your service at the moment, was in the midst of doing something else.
This is the same reason Yellow Page inquiries are more expensive, and generally will yield higher response than say Radio Advertising. This is due to the different focus of the viewers at the time of seeing the ad.
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KEY POINT: DO NOT compare your pop ad results to your PPC results, they will NEVER match, nor should they. That would be an apples-to-oranges comparison. Both methods should be implemented as a part of a well-rounded marketing plan.
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4. FOLLOW-UP. This is where over 97% of web sites miss it. They make an ad, they buy the traffic, but don’t tell people what to do when they arrive. Here are some important questions to ask about any web site being advertised:
What happens after they click your ad and arrive?
Can they navigate the site easily to find what they are looking for?
Is your site compelling?
Does it draw them in deeper?
Does the site itself SELL?
Are People encouraged to contact you?
Is it easy to contact you?
Is it easy to buy?
If you are buying advertising then you want something to happen. You want people to take an action. You want visitors to sign up for your newsletter, buy your CD, order your services, etc. Whatever it may be, all you want is for them to “do the thing”. SO ENCOURAGE IT! Gather as much information from visitors as you can. Offer free reports, bonuses, and/or extra services. Give a good deal, have a sale, do what it takes to increase “sales”.
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KEY POINT: Remember, simply getting “traffic” or “visitors” to a site is not enough. Despite what traffic resellers, web designers and hosts will tell you. As a business person you want CONVERSION. And that is the magic word.
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[==SUCCESS TIP==] Before running an ad campaign, ask yourself, “If I were looking to buy this same product/service, what would this website have to say and do to convince ‘me’ to buy”
Any site that can answer that question, is converting lots of visitors into customers. That is exactly what your site must do.
This, my friend, is the “Hit Myth”. Hits, traffic, visitors, whatever you want to call them, do not do much for business and the internet unless you learn to convert. Getting visitors to a web site is easy. Getting those visitors to actually do something is the real challenge.
If you are going to buy traffic, make sure you deal with a company that can offer you full service and support towards making the campaign successful.
Keep an eye out as I share some simple tips to getting a better conversion rate out of your website.
Until we speak again,
Promote, Promote, Promote!
Blessings in Biz from Maurice
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©2005 Maurice Evans. All rights reserved. You may reproduce this article only so long as this full copyright and author information is included. Maurice Evans is the Development Director for
http://www.iGROWyourBiz.com. Since 1992 he has assisted small business owners in learning how to get more bang for their advertising buck. For your Advertising and Marketing Consulting needs contact him toll free at 1-800-708-0907 or
info@iGROWyourBiz.com